


Glass Sandstorm

by rapono



Series: Tales of Reyes [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: AU?, Based on RP, One Shot, Possible Continuation, Weapons of Mass Destruction, buried technology, exploring an abandoned base
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8427142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rapono/pseuds/rapono
Summary: The cowboy and the wraith meet at a relic in the desert.





	

_This is a conversation between Jesse McCree and Reaper (Overwatch) ._

 

Jesse McCree strolls through the desert, passing by an old abandoned overwatch base. The area was a hotspot for sandstorms, but today, there is no breeze. As he walks by the old relic, he sees a familiar figure.

"Howdy, Gabe."

He turns towards him. "Hello, Jesse."

"Long time no see, ain't it. What're you doing here?"

"None of your business. What are you doing here?"

"Just wandering along. Until I bumped into you, that is. How convenient."

"Tch." He crosses his arms.

"But really, what're you doing here? There's nothing worth your time in this place."

"Just searching for old things."

"Pfft. Sure is a lot of old shit here. I remember we stayed at this place for a bit during a mission."

"Hmm. This place didn't last too long. Sandstorm kept messing with the wiring and such, so they moved to a better location, but left the old base here."

"Yeah. They didn't leave a lot behind, besides some boxes and furniture. I think all the important stuff was moved too."

"...most of it."

"Most of it? You think something was left here?"

"..." He turns his head towards the building.

He hums, crossing his arms. "I'm gonna say that's a yes. What'd do you think they left behind?"

"I have a few ideas, based on what I haven't found elsewhere."

"And what are those ideas? Some weapon?"

"...One was an anti-sandstorm shield. They weren't able to finish it before they moved, and supposedly left it and other projects here. Just glad there's no storm today."

"Hm. Let me guess, Talon wants this stuff? I don't know why you personally would be interested in it."

He turns back to McCree. "My interests are not of your concern, Jesse. I would advice leaving now."

"Why? Come on, Gabe, you got me curious now. And I got nowhere else to go."

"You're a cowboy right? Don't you have a ranch to tend to?"

"Ha ha, you're so funny. No, I don't. And if you think I'm gonna let you go in there on your own, you're insane."

"Hmph. Might as well have you watch my back."

"Aww, I knew you still liked me. Let's go, then."

He growls, then walks up to the base. It's locked with no power. McCree hums, walking around to the side of the building. Seeing that most of the windows on the side are broken, he whistles at Gabe and gestures to them. Reaper sees the gesture and turns into smoke, then floats through the window. McCree watches him do this a little owlishly and climbs in after him. Reaper reforms inside and starts looking around the base. McCree follows him, poking him in the side once he's caught up. 

"Hey, what was that?"

"What?"

"That thing you just did. You turned into smoke."

"Just a little... ability I picked up."

"Oh. Man, that must make getting into places pretty easy for you, huh?"

"Yep." He looks over the consoles and growls. "Unfortunate there's no power."

Jesse poked a few of the buttons and huffed. "Yeah, that is a shame. We don't need it too badly, do we? Besides to see."

"It would've helped to know where they stored the goods." Reaper continues to scan the building, the only light being the sunlight leaking through the broken windows. The place is slightly rusted and sand fills the edges and cracks.

"Well, this place ain't too big. It shouldn't be too hard." Jesse walks around the room, pulling open drawers and cabinets. There wasn't much left besides sand and cobwebs.

"Well if you were a scientist, where would you hide your projects?"

"In a vault, maybe? I don't know. I ain't a scientist."

"Hmm." He continues surveying the room, then suddenly trips.

Jesse looks back, hearing him hit the floor. He snickers quietly at him. "You okay, Reyes? What happened?"

"Ha ha. I tripped on..." A floor panel at his feet is slightly ajar, and the slight opening is not filled with sand.

"Woah. Is that like a secret entrance or something?" He goes over and crouches next to it, peering at it. Reaper recovers from his fall. "Huh." He tries dislodging the panel. It comes off, revealing a small safe door, large enough for a human to go through. The safe is unpowered, but still locked. 

"Great."

Jesse frowns, tugging at the handle of the door. "Now, how are we gonna get through this?

"We need a power source."

"You don't happen to have one of those, do you? Cause I sure don't."

"No. But I bet if we could turn on the base's power, this safe would be powered up too."

"We need to find the generator."

"Where would that be, do you think? That thing's probably so old it's just dust, now."

"Check the rooms around the middle of the base, one should be the generator room."

He nods, getting up and walking out to the next room, checking for anything that said "Generator" on it. He wasn't getting very far. He spots a heavy-duty looking door with a padlock on it, but fortunately the lock is missing. He pushes the door open, yelling for Gabe to come and check it out with him. He arrives and has a look. It's very dark inside, and there's some large machinery inside as well. 

"I think this is it."

McCree uses a lighter to get a better look at the equipment, nodding in agreement. "Now how are we gonna start this thing up? We don't even have a battery."

"I think they used solar energy to boot it up, seeing as there's plenty of sunlight around here. They would be taken the solar panels with then. Hopefully they left the damaged ones behind."

"And the damaged ones will still work, you reckon? Seems like we're at the end of our rope."

"They'd most likely be scratched up by the sandstorms. They should have some ability to absorb sunlight, just not very efficiently. " He looks over the generator console. "I'm going to go on the roof and see what I can do. Be ready to start it up."

Jesse nods, tapping a few of the buttons. "I'll be damned if this works, but alright."

Reaper nods back, then turns into smoke and floats away. About fifteen minutes later, the little panel attached to the generator lights up. The screen says " _Start Up?_ " with _Yes_ and _No_ being the options. Jesse hums and presses Yes, waiting for something to happen. The generator rumbles to life. Jesse looks around as the lights flicker back on, the light hazy from all the sand. After a minute, the screen displays several options, showing what places are being sent power and what aren't. Currently only the lighting is on, all other devices and places have been turned off. Reaper reforms behind McCree, who turns to the dark-cloaked man, smiling. 

"Well, that went better than expected. What all do we need to turn on in this place? All of it?"

"Hmm. We should probably conserve power. But I see nothing about a laboratory here." He scrolls through the list, and on the bottom is the option "Coffee Machine."

"The coffee machine gets an option of it's own? The coffee can't be that good." He chuckles, pointing to the option.

"Huh, I don't remember there being a coffee machine at this base."

"Well, let's boot up the supposed coffee machine then. See what happens."

After pressing the button the screen reads: _Processing... Processing... power on successful._ Jesse hums, going back to the room with the safe in the floor, hoping it activated it. Sure enough, it's on. Jesse calls for Gabe again, crouching beside it once more. Gabe arrives after another minute, the large console behind Jesse booting up. 

"I turned on the main console as well. I'm guessing it worked."

"Sweet. Let's crack this puppy open." He inspects the buttons on the safe, trying to figure out what the code might've been.

"I wonder..." Reaper puts in on a code. The first one fails, but when he enters the second one, the safe unlocks.

"Woah, how'd you know that?" Jesse grins and looks over at him, pulling the safe open.

"Wild guess." There's a ladder leading down.

"I can't believe that." He chuckles and starts to descend the ladder. Reaper follows him. 

"It was ' _Cup of Joe_ ', the numbers being where you'd find those letters on an old phone keypad."

Jesse snickers, shaking his head. "You are one good guess, Reyes."

"Yeah well sometimes even geniuses can be idiots." 

The ladder is pretty long. "Goddamn, how far does this thing go? We're gonna have a hell of a time getting back up."

"Hmm." The ladder soon comes to an end. It's dark and cool at the bottom, and the room ahead is too dark to see in. There's a switch beside the ladder. Jesse looks around using his lighter, flipping the switch as soon as he notices it. The light turn on revealing a massive room. Lots of tools, screens and machinery full the place, but a lot of space is also empty.

"I always thought the higher ups were oddly resilient towards leaving this place."

Jesse whistled, stepping further into the room. "Why would they leave shit like this behind? A lot of this could still probably be used."

Gabe looks around. "Most of these are tools, not the actual devices they were working on. Although I bet they forgot at least a few."

He nodded, looking at some of the screens. "You never told me. Does Talon want this stuff?"

"They don't know it's here. They just wanted to see if there was anything of value left at this base."

"I don't know what they'd do with an anti-sandstorm device, but you know. I guess it doesn't matter."

"No it doesn't." The screens at each area have information about the project that was being worked on in that area. One of them mentions a device called the 'Glass Cannon'.

"Glass Cannon? What do you think that was?" He brushed some of the dust off of the screen, inspecting it. It shows a lazer cannon-looking device, with lists scientific jargon surrounding it. 

"Some sort of weapon. A lot of these seem to have something to do with the sand."

"Fitting. They have a lot of it at their disposal."

Reaper is reading another screen. "This one says something about controlling the sandstorm. Seems like it was scrapped early in development."

"Yeah, I wouldn't think it'd be that easy to control the weather."

"Nope." There's a large area at the end, but it looks somewhat damaged. Jesse stepped inside the area, moving some of the rubble around. 

"Wonder what happened here. Only part of this place that's broken."

Upon closer inspect, there seems to be dried blood among the wreckage, as well as several large shards of sharp glass. Reaper suddenly grabs McCree's hand.

McCree looks at him, surprised. "What?..."

"You almost pierced your hand idiot." There's a sharp spike of glass sticking out were McCree's hand was, but it's not very noticeable from where McCree was looking. McCree hummed, staring at the glass. 

"Well, lookie there. Thanks for saving my hand, Gabe. Even though it was my metal one."

"Oh, right." He lets go, then starts to read the flickering screens nearby. Blood coats the glass spike. McCree frowned at the blood, tugging on Reaper's coat. 

"Hey, I didn't leave that there. I wonder what happened?"

"Looks like something went wrong. Or someone." Reaper forces open a broken drawer of a desk, then pulls out a metal disk-like device.

"Is there somewhere we can put that in?" He looks around for a console that wasn't too badly damaged. There's a nearby one with a disk shaped indent. Reaper pushes the disk inside and it opens up. Jesse stands behind him, watching the console curiously. It's there's a few metal belts, watches, and collars inside. Some are broken. McCree lifts a few out, inspecting them. 

"What are these...?"

Reaper pulls out a collar, then goes back and reads the broken screen he was looking at before. He returns to Jesse. "Wear this."

He squints, holding the collar in his hands. "I'm not sure if I wanna do that."

He sighs. "Just do it."

He grumbles and puts the collar on, scratching at his neck. The collar suddenly beeps and autotightens itself until it is snugly around the cowboy's neck. Reaper grabs some rubble off the ground. Jesse stands still, eyeing Reaper nervously. 

"What does this thing do?"

He throws the rubble at Mccree's face. It bounces off with a blue glow, not touching Jesse's skin.

"Found it."

Jesse stares in surprise, attempting to pry the collar off. "This is what you were looking for? This is like a shield."

The collar is snugly on, and refuses to budge. "Yes. It said over there they were working on human-sized ones before making one big enough to cover a building." He takes out a shotgun. "I wonder what else it can block..."

Jesse's eyes widen, taking a step back. "Gabe, don't you dare even try it. I swear to God if you do..."

"Come on Jesse, aren't you curious?"

"Not when I'm the one being fired at!"

An automated voice speaks from a nearby console. [ _Subject 3's heart rate has elevated._ ]

Jesse looks at the console, frowning. "Oh, I wonder why."

Reaper sighs. "Fine, I'll try it on myself." 

He takes out the other intact collar, and puts it on himself. [ _Subject 5's heart rate not detected. Please make sure the collar is snug._ ]

Jesse hums, shrugging his shoulders. "We could just not try it at all. That would be great."

[ _Scanning... Scanning... Subject 5 is deceased. Please remove collar from corpse._ ]

Jesse frowns and walks over to Reaper, pulling the collar off. 

"I guess it's broken."

Reaper is silent. The collar comes off him easily. Jesse tosses the collar down, looking back up at him. 

"Does Talon want this?"

"Probably. But first we should test yours."

Jesse groaned, pulling at his collar. "I don't want to. I _really_ don't want to."

"If you cooperate, I'll let you choose where I shoot."

"Shoot me in my metal hand, please. It's the only place that won't hurt."

"Fine." 

He shoots McCree's metal hand. It's pushed back by the force of the shot, but there doesn't appear to be any damage. 

"Huh. How about that." 

Jesse inspects his hand, looking back at Reaper. Without warning, he takes a second shot at McCree's chest. Jesse's blown back a bit, but not hurt.He yelps in surprise, clutching his chest. 

"Hey! What the hell was that? You didn't even warn me!"

"You weren't going to let me willingly."

[ _Subject 3 has been shot. Shields remain at 100%._ ]

Jesse glares at him and crosses his arms. "You're a real asshole. What if the shield failed?"

He shrugs. "I'd like to try yours now. Do you know how to take it off?"

"No. It's locked tight." He pulled on it again, failing once more.

"Well, I guess you're like that forever now. Mine only removed cause it thought I was dead. I wonder what it prevents you from doing..."

"Oh, great. I get to be your lab rat again, don't I? That's just perfect."

"I wonder if you can eat anything. "He pulls a chocolate bar from his cloak and offers it to McCree. 

"You just have this on you?" Jesse took the chocolate, looking at it carefully before unwrapping it.

"It's quick and delicious energy."

"Uh huh. I bet it is." 

He attempts to eat the chocolate, rolling his eyes. The shield prevents it from entering his mouth.

"So now I'm gonna starve, I guess." Jesse frowns, dropping the chocolate on the ground. Reaper watches him drop it, seeming not please the cowboy simply disposed of his treat.

"That's unfortunate. Guess I'll have to keep shooting you until the shield fails."

"I'd rather we find a way to get this thing off."

He seems a little disappointed. "Have you tried pressing the button on the center of it?"

"Nope. Guess we'll try that." Jesse sighed, pressing the button on the collar. The shield deactivates and the collar loosens. 

[ _Shutting down collar 3..._ ]

Jesse sighed, pulling it off. "Thank god..."

"Let me try now."

He handed it over to Reaper, rubbing his neck. Reaper puts it on. 

[ _Scanning... Subject 3 is deceased. No heartbeat detected._ ]

Jesse stared at him, frowning. "That's plain weird."

"..."

"You...You can't be dead, right? You can't be standing right now if you were."

Reaper stays silent, pulling the collar off. He puts it and the other devices in his cloak.

"Come on, Gabe. You can't get all mysterious on me now."

"I'm not who I used to be."

"Yeah but...You can't be dead! There's no such thing as zombies!"

"Never said zombies." He takes out a tablet and hooks it up to the console, and begins downloading the data.

"Well if the dead comes back that's what they are." He stands next to him, frowning at him.

"...I'm not even sure if I'm quite human anymore."

"There's gotta be some left in you. You can't be all bad."

Reaper puts the tablet down and turns into mist. Jesse stared at the mist, sighing quietly. 

"You have to be human somewhere."

Reaper forms behind McCree. "I don't know."

McCree glances behind him. "Somewhere, you have to. If there isn't then how can you be here?"

Reaper starts to remove his mask, but stops himself. McCree turns around completely, staring at his mask. 

"I want to see your face."

"..."

"Come on. Please?"

"I don't know if I want you to see."

"I do. I don't care what it looks like."

He slowly removed his mask. His face is scarred and scratched up, his eyes fully black minus the red rings of his irises. McCree stared at him, his face blank. 

"That is... not very pretty."

He quickly puts the mask back on. Jesse looks down. 

"How were you brought back? Who did it?

"Dr Ziegler."

"What? Angela did that to you?"

"Let's just say things didn't go so smoothly."

"But why would she try to bring you back?"

"Saving a friend."

"Well, that makes sense. But it was still a dumb move. You don't bring back the dead."

"I was almost dead. I think. Not that'd I would really know. It's all a blur."

"Ugh, this is so confusing. I guess it doesn't really matter how it happened. You're here now."

"I guess." The tablet beeps. He looks down at the tablet. 

"What're you doing?"

"Downloading the data, what else would I be doing?"

"I don't know, I'm not a tech guy."

Reaper unplugs the tablet and puts it back in his cloak. "It's unfortunate that glass cannon doesn't appear to be here."

"Guess they took it with them. Though I don't know if I want that in the hands of Talon." He shrugs.

"Probably not. And it seems like it was at least partially responsible for this mess." 

He points at the area of damage where McCree almost put his hand. There's lots of glass shards sticking out of the 'blast area', in odd curving shapes.

"Yeah, you're probably right. Is there anything else we need down here?" He looked around, humming in thought.

"Hmm, maybe." 

He retrieves the disk from the console. He takes out the tablet for a moment and goes through it. He goes over to another area. He follows him, looking at the screens in this area. He puts the disk in another console, and a drawer opens up with a weird looking gun.

"You better not try that one on me."

It looks like a water gun, but with sand instead of water inside. McCree looks at it, chuckling. 

"That can't do much damage, right?"

Reaper reads the console. "The sandman beta."

"Hm. It just shoots sand?"

"I wonder..." 

Reaper aims it at McCree's face and shoots. The cowboy starts to feel sleepy. McCree holds his head in his hand, moving to lean against Reaper. 

"You asshole..."

"Sorry, I have business to conduct."

He falls over on the ground after a minute, unconscious. When Mccree wakes up, he finds himself just outside the base. It's night. He looks around, his head hurting pretty badly. He wobbly stands up and calls out for Gabriel. There's one of his hellfire shotguns lying in the sand beside him, but no sign of the man. Jesse picks it up and looks it over, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Its intricately designed, and alot more beautiful to look at when its not pointed at you.

A breeze starts to pick up. A sandstorm is coming.

**Author's Note:**

> [Original Shamchat](http://www.shamchat.com/9f5f5883/)


End file.
